A servant opened the gate, and Lord Arleigh asked if the Earl of Mountdean was within, and was told that he was.

“There is nothing the matter, I hope,” said Lord Arleigh—­“nothing wrong?”

The servant replied that something strange had happened, but he could not tell what it was.  He did not think there was anything seriously wrong.  And then Lord Arleigh entered the house where the years of his young wife’s life had drifted away so sadly.

Chapter XXXIX.

Lord Arleigh was shown into the dining-room at Winiston House, and stood there impatiently awaiting the Earl of Mountdean.  He came in at last, but the master of Beechgrove barely recognized him, he was so completely changed.  Years seemed to have fallen from him.  His face was radiant with a great glad light.  He held out his hand to his friend.

“Congratulate me,” he said; “I am one of the happiest men in the world.”

“What has happened?” asked Lord Arleigh, in surprise.

“Follow me,” said the earl; and in silence Lord Arleigh obeyed him.

They came to the pretty shaded room, and the earl, entering first, said: 

“Now, my darling, the hour has come which will repay you for the sorrow of years.”

Wondering at such words, Lord Arleigh followed his friend.  There lay his beautiful wife, lovelier than ever, with the sunlight touching her hair with gold, her fair face transparent as the inner leaf of a rose—­Madaline, his darling, who had been his wife in name only.

What did it mean?  Why had the earl led him thither?  Was it wanton cruelty or kindness?  His first impulse was to fall on his knees by the little couch and kiss his wife’s hands, his second to ask why he had been led thither to be tortured so.  Madaline rose with a glad cry at his entrance, but Lord Mountdean laid a restraining hand on her shoulder.

“Lord Arleigh,” said the earl, “tell me who this is.”

“My wife, Lady Arleigh,” he replied.

She bent forward with clasped hands.

“Oh, listen.  Norman,” she said, “listen.”

“You looked upon her as the only woman you ever could love; you made her your wife; yet, believing her to be the daughter of a felon, you separated from her, preferring a life-time of misery to the dishonor of your name.  Is it not so, Lord Arleigh?”

“Yes,” he replied, “it is indeed so.”

“Then now learn the truth.  This lady, your wife, is not the daughter of a convict.  In her—­how happy the telling of it makes me—­behold my daughter, the child whom for seventeen years I have sought incessantly—­my heiress, Lady Madaline Charlewood, the descendant of a race as honored, as ancient, and as noble as your own!”

Lord Arleigh listened like one in a dream.  It could not be possible, it could not be true, his senses must be playing him false—­he must be going mad.  His wife—­his deserted wife—­the earl’s long-lost daughter!  It was surely a cruel fable.